Thunderclap's Moondance
by planet p
Summary: AU; in the future, Cherry/Lyle


**Thunderclap's Moondance** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

They'd been separated, in the end. He'd lain then, for a long time, unable to move.

It hurt.

His species hurt.

He'd read somewhere that the Earth was a living thing, a sentient thing, but that its life forms were it eyes and ears; its hands. That held, in their minds, its words. Words of the world, words of the Garden of Earth.

It hurt, now.

Somewhere, in the middle of 'the End,' Cherry found him.

She was alive.

He held her. Fragile, clumsy thing.

A thing like him.

He held her so tightly.

* * *

The end had come too soon. There'd been too many, and now there were less. Too soon; on time.

It had taken Lin from him, finally. She lived on in the rain and wind.

He felt none of it.

He couldn't feel her; she was all that mattered.

He needed her. Selfish him, he needed only her.

She'd make it okay, wouldn't she?

Not Lin; his twin. (It was unfair!)

He felt none of them, not even the children. But he felt Cherry.

She held his hand, an angel.

* * *

It was a new world, a different world. There was pain as there was bleakness; blank screams, cold sunlight.

He never let go; they couldn't be separated.

She needed him, he needed her more. (She'd never know it, possibly.)

They worked, that was their role.

In the lightless night, he hummed for her in her mind till sleep found her wearily.

He wasn't like the others; he should have been their John Connor. He couldn't do it.

He let her down, time after time. (She never even knew.)

The world changed so many times, sometimes.

He held her as she slept. He no longer needed it.

* * *

At first, children were not allowed. He felt their little lives depart this world, if he did not see it being done. He felt them all. He gave them names, in his mind.

Later, when it was allowed, Cherry had a child of her own. She named him Commodore. (He wanted nothing to do with the naming of that small, vulnerable thing. He was afraid it would bring bad luck.)

Commodore made Cherry smile, and worry. He gave her pain again, anew through the numbness. He gave her life, as she'd given him life.

For Lyle, the world was only waiting; life was a long, painful wait that you endured anyway.

Commodore grew by years, and asked his mother why his father never spoke. Sure, there were some words that weren't permitted, and there were times when speech was permitted, and those when it was not, and there was a limit on the words allowed, but-

But he'd run out of words, by then. (He'd have to wait till tomorrow to resume speech. The other children shot him looks; he'd used up his words with pointless questions again, hadn't he?)

His mother smiled, touched his hair; the other children wouldn't let him play with them. If he couldn't even greet them, they didn't want to play with him. It wasn't as though it was hard, a simple _Hey_ for the lot of them would have sufficed. (He wasn't brave enough to test the rules.)

There was a song that he knew, that he'd dreamed once, long ago, that kept him company when no words were allowed. (Songs weren't allowed, either. The painful sounds they used to punish transgressors weren't music.)

The day after, he had a _Hey_ for the other kids. (You couldn't save words for longer than a week, or you forfeited the lot.)

He was allowed to play again, with a warning notice. If he did it again, they'd ban him for more than just one day.

It wasn't exactly fun, what they did, it was more like hanging out, but sometimes it was okay, and sometimes some of the words they swapped were good ones.

Commodore's favourite word was _smile_, closely followed by _song_. (Though _song_ was almost a banned word, so he couldn't say it very much.) His other favourite words were names; his mother's and father's, and his own. _Cherry, Lyle, Commodore._ Quietly, he liked a bad word, too. _Broke._ He didn't know why he liked it, it was pretty silly, but he did.

Three weeks later, he had a new favourite word, better than all the rest. _Berry__._ _Berry__, Berry, Berry, Berry…_ He could keep saying it over and over in his mind and he'd never get sick of hearing it. But he'd liked it best when Berry, herself, had said it.

As usual, he'd used all of his words on questions, and he'd only had one word left, which he'd had to use on the suddenly formal twin to _hey_, _hello_. He hadn't even had one word left to tell Berry his name when she'd told him hers.

She'd probably been so disappointed; she probably wouldn't talk to him tomorrow.

It was so sucky that words weren't allowed to be borrowed from others who still had some, he thought. If they had been, he'd have borrowed one of his dad's. He never used them anyway. (He was probably stupid, like the other kids had speculated – more than once – too dumb to talk, or loony.)

He got mad then, that his father's words weren't distributed amongst the rest of them seeing that he wasn't intending on using them. He could have told Berry his name, if they had been. It was so stupid and unfair! Silently, he hated his father.

Why did he have to get the loony dad? What had he ever done that had been so bad?

Exactly nothing!

And it hadn't been his mom!

The next day, he forwent his usual questions so that he'd be sure to have the words to tell Berry his name. _I'm Commodore_ would have been the same as _I am Commodore_ – three words worth – but it just sounded stupid to say _I am_, so he went for the _I'm_ version.

For a soul-stopping moment, Berry's face remained the same as it had when he'd been delivering his words to her. Then, she laughed.

Meanly. In his face.

And then six words, "That's not even a name!"

He could have told her the same of her own name, except that it was the most perfect name in the whole world, so he turned on his heel and ran, instead.

Like a coward, he ran!

Like a loser, he ran!

Ran from a silly girl's six little words!

A girl with whom he was in love, a girl with the most perfect name, and the most prefect orange hair.

A girl with whom he imagined having his own children, some day.

He didn't even want the rest of his words. He only wanted to scream insensibly. (But, like songs, screaming wasn't allowed. Only if you had a special pardon, though there were no pardons for songs.)

"She hates me," he told Cherry. "I love her."

Cherry held him to her.

He knew she'd say he was too young, it was too soon, for him to know if it was love, true love.

But she loved him.

He loved her back. A small part of him felt frightened: What if he loved Berry more? What if he loved her more than his own mom? But he couldn't ask his mom about it, he didn't want to hurt her.

So he hated his dad again. Stupid loony! He could have asked him, except, oh, right, he didn't talk!

One day, he vowed, Berry would laugh because he'd said something funny, because she thought _he_ was funny, and not stupid. (He wasn't his dad, at all.)

* * *

_Pretty sucky, I realise. I don't know what I watched__…_ oh yeah, I do, Terminator: Salvation_. I kinda bombed out on the title, too. Thanks for reading!_


End file.
